the best fish to eat were those like salmon, sardines and tuna

OK, so this story is not strictly about weight loss but nevertheless highlights the importance of eating healthily and most importantly eating fish!

A new survey which looked at over 300 children shows that expectant mothers who ate fish at least three times a week during the crucial second trimester of pregnancy had more intelligent children than those who did not. The children who were tested at the age of three were made to undergo routine intelligence tests and those whose mothers had eaten more fish had children with better cognitive and language skills.

The research which was done at Harvard University and which was published in the American Journal of Epidemiology clearly underlines the importance of mothers eating fish when pregnant and also undermines the hypothesis that pregnant women should not eat fish due to the risk of ingesting mercury. In other studies it has been shown that women who had high levels of mercury in them (which is seen to be present in trace amounts in some fish) had children who did not perform well in cognitive and language testing.

Different fish contain different levels of mercury and also different levels of the all important Omega -3 fatty acids which are known to be so good for health. It is therefore important for expectant mothers to be choosy about which types of fish they eat. Swordfish and mackerel for example have higher amounts of both Omega-3 and mercury and cod and haddock have lower levels of both of these compounds. The scientists said that the best fish to eat were those like salmon, sardines and tuna which had high levels of Omega -3 fatty acids and very little mercury.

Expectant mothers should stay away from shellfish especially oysters during their pregnancies as they can be extremely harmful if they are not completely fresh.